


Broken Crown

by bbelladonna



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: Canon Divergent, Spoilers, just a lil bit, s6ep22 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-09 15:18:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11671734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbelladonna/pseuds/bbelladonna
Summary: "now in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace."Five is feeling her sins crawling on her back.





	Broken Crown

  When she was younger, Elissa was horribly afraid of the monsters living in her room. Her parents had to spend ages reassuring her that nothing was going to get her while she was sleeping, and every night after they left her room Elissa stuck a chair under the closet door handle to make sure nothing could get out of there. She kept a small flashlight under her pillows and always _always_ slept under blankets, even though it was often way too hot to sleep comfortably under so many layers. Eventually she grew out of these habits, but the fear that something might grab her feet if she stood too close to her bed was always forefront at bedtime.

  Down in the tunnels under the old university, as Janine decided to take a stand to figure out what the Glass Protocol thing was following them, Five felt tears burning in the back of her eyes and darkness was clouding on the edge of her vision. Her mouth tasted like copper and blood, thanks to the Minister's little stunt in the dining hall, and the air in the tunnels was stale and smelt like mold. The monsters that lived in her room were coming for her with her back pressed against the wall.

  Janine pulled a flare from her belt. “Runner Five, we will take a stand here for a few moments. Whatever this thing is, we will see it, we will learn about it, and we will work out how to deal with this logistical problem,” she said, igniting the flare and throwing it towards the mouth of the side tunnel they were in. “There. I’ve placed a flare in the center of this cavern. No electronic trickery will snuff that out.”

Footsteps echoed in the tunnels, and whatever was following them kept laughing manically. It sounded like a child, and as anyone can tell you the most horrifying sound in a situation like this is the sound of a laughing child. Five couldn’t breathe, but she covered her mouth with both hands, more as a comfort thing than anything else. She had no weapons on her and Janine had her gun loose in its holster, wanting to gather information on this thing instead of putting more distance between them or trying to kill it.

  The flare at the mouth of the tunnel was burning bright red, and it reminded Five of blood. After they had been standing there a moment, Five realized she didn’t hear any footsteps. She was turning to Janine when more laughter sounded from all around them and the flare died. Janine swore and they could hear Sam scrambling in his office, trying to get cams on them. This thing was eating the light and the flares as quickly as Janine was lighting more, and still they couldn’t see it anywhere, only hear its laughter.

  Something was touching her arm. Its fingers were cold and indeed leathery like Sam had described earlier, and as they traced a line from her wrist up her arm Five felt someone's breath on the back of her neck. It was moist and smelt like decay, like a dead rat she'd found as a kid. She almost threw up right there, instead opting to grab Janine's hand and start running a second before Moonchild told her too.

  She remembered running until Janine said they could stop, and from then until they made it to the surface Five was a wreck. She wasn't sure if she was crying or not but she still couldn't breathe past the lump in her throat and she felt as useful as a sinking lifeboat on a stormy sea. At least once she got out of the tunnels her head cleared enough where she was able to tackle Raoul and search his pockets for the unbroken ampules. 

  Five heard Janine telling her to take one for herself and her breath caught in her throat. These ampules were so small, with just a bit of liquid in each. She stared at them for a moment before using her right hand to push herself up from kneeling on the ground. She held an ampule in her right hand and broke off the top before quickly tilting her head back and drinking whatever was in the container. 

  "Good. you're safe," Janine sighed, and Five heard Sam sigh too. She felt sick, and gently swayed on her feet while Janine ran Raoul off. She knew what Sam and Janine were talking about was important, but so much had happened this evening her brain just short circuited. 

  There was a knock on the manhole cover they'd climbed out of. Janine turned to look at it while Sam nervously asked what was going on. When Janine turned to look at Five she saw the runner already on the other side of the quad. She was obviously waiting for Janine to catch up but she looked like she was seconds away from leaving her behind. Whatever was in those tunnels scared Five enough to ditch her altruistic nature for a minute to get away from it. 

  It was dark out, but Janine insisted of running straight home. They wouldn't risk Sigrid finding them, and the sooner they got home with the ampule of virus cure the better. Five didn't blame her, but she was tired. Every bone in her body ached and every muscle felt like it had been bruised black and blue. She had an awful migraine too, which she was sure was from Sigrid knocking her out with that tone and Moonchild piloting her body like a jaeger for a bit afterwards. The Glass Protocol entity was still after her, the monster under her bed that only came out at night, and Five needed to tell Janine something before they got to Abel.

  She saw the red light on the top of the comms tower in the distance and stopped. Dangerous, especially at night, but she had to tell Janine something she was not going to like.

  "Colonel de Luca." How many years had it been since she'd arrived at Abel? She hadn't gotten comfortable enough to call anyone besides Sam by their first name or anything less formal than "ma'am" or "sir" or whatever title they used.

  Janine stopped and turned in her heel, Five noting she placed a hand on the gun in her right hip holster. "Runner Five, we do not have time to stop. We have no lights out here and our cameras cannot help us keep an eye out for any zombies we may encounter," Janine said. Five knew she was right, and had heard this speech several times. Mostly from Sam, whose voice had risen a pitch as he began protesting to Five's sudden stop and trying to keep an eye on them with his limited equipment.

   "I'm sorry ma'am, but this won't take long," Five said, voice trailing off at the end. God, Janine was going to kill her for this. The moon was full tonight, and there was enough light for Janine to see Runner Five slowly reach into the sleeve on her right arm and pull out a small glass ampule. There was a small amount of liquid in it, and Five smiled ruefully. "Sorry Colonel. You gave me one order I couldn't follow."

  Five watched Janine process what the ampule in her hand meant, and was impressed she didn't immediately draw her gun on her. Janine had one ampule from earlier, and if Five was showing off another one intact, then that meant Five was still going to turn. Unless she was immune by some minuscule miracle.

  _Or curse_ , a small part of her whispered. Moonchild hummed in agreement. She hadn't said anything since the tunnels, and Five briefly wondered what she was thinking about. Probably about the monster that'd been released after her.

  Sam was doing his best to keep calm, but he was also doing his best to be incredibly angry, and he sounded like he was being slowly strangled. He was having a hard time getting words out, and Five decided to start talking before either Janine or Sam said something.

  "I'm just some runner. It wasn't fair for me to take this cute when Doctor Cohen could have used one and Veronica the other. They can do more with it than I could have." Five took several deep breaths, knowing she needed to talk fast, but needing to keep herself from throwing up or crying. "I saw," she corrected herself, "or heard at the dinner that someone who are infected food turned quickly, so if I were going to turn I would have done it long ago. Especially considering I've been running almost nonstop for ages." She slowly rocked back and forth on her heels, holding her left arm to her body. "I guess whatever Van Ark did to me made me immune. So that might be able to help Veronica with reverse engineering a cure, since she was so upset we'd burned his notes."

  God, her head hurt. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, exhausted again. She was aware Sam and Janine were talking (either to her or about her, she wasn't sure) but there was more to her motivations behind not taking an ampule for herself she hadn’t (couldn’t, wouldn’t) tell them.

It always came back to this, but after the Aurora and Moonchild, Five had been biting off more than she could chew, for lack of a better term. On runs by herself she was more reckless than she had been, she had a bit more of a temper and attitude, and was more careless than she had ever been. She hadn't turned 17 yet, and Moonchild had made her a murderer because she wasn't strong enough to take control of her own mind. She would never admit this to anyone, not even Sam, the older brother she'd never had, but every day was just another day she was sabotaging herself. Setting herself up to fail. To be punished for what she'd done, even though nothing could every cover blowing up those ships and trying to destroy one good thing she'd had since the world ended.

  They made their way back to Abel, quietly and tensely. Of course Five had to swear up and down she’d submit to whatever tests she had to and stay at least a week in the hospital so they could monitor her, but even after that she thought Janine was going to ground her from runs for the foreseeable future.

  Everyone was quiet after she’d finished talking. There wasn’t really anything to say at this point. Five could only imagine what they were thinking, how mad they were at her. She knew they wouldn’t kick her off the roster or out of the township, but she wished they would. It was better than she deserved.

  It was hard to tell, but she thought Moonchild was enjoying this whole series of events. She’d gone from reciting old poems to singing, and as they approached Abel’s gates Five heard her softly sing a few lines from an old song she’d heard once before.

_And I hope for a trace to lead me back home from this place_

_But there was no sound, there was only me and my disgrace_

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read my other two works you'll notice this Runner Five is not the same as the first. Yes! I have two Runner Fives I will write about and keep track of. I know what I'm doing. Kind of.  
> This was written because I felt Five taking the cure was kind of... a mistake? I think that's what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty sure Five is immune already (thanks Van Ark) and based on what we were hearing throughout the mission (or not hearing, did you hear any coughing?) they were gonna be fine. But I also wrote this because I wanted to explore Five's guilt (which I do a /lot/) and what things they might be doing to punish themselves. Maybe one day I'll write about something else.  
> The last quarter I'm still kind of iffy about, so I might change it later. Writing late at night is hard. And if I turn out to be wrong about Five's immunity you all have permission to come back here and tease me endlessly about it. Song quoted at the beginning is "Broken Crown" by Mumford and Sons (there's some double meaning there..) and at the end is "Wolf" by First Aid Kit. PLEASE give it a listen it's such a good song. Dialogue taken from zrtranscripts on tumblr! They saved me from writing so much dialogue.  
> Thanks for reading. Have a good one guys.


End file.
